Dissonant
by Paradoxical Paradigm
Summary: Sound was an intimate friend to him, but he'd never had the time or luxury to venture in its creative process. Now he wanted to. Even so, never would he have thought that learning the piano would determine whether he lived or died.  Post Coda; Whump
1. I

**A/N: **Hello there :D. There will be **no **pairings. There will be a case [Pfft…!]. This is post JJ-departure, but **Seaver and Doyle do not exist**. Please do enjoy.

**Warnings: **A lot of violence. And excessive use of musical terminology at times :D

* * *

><p><em>The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. <em>Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

_**Dissonant**_

**I**

Muscles straining, he lethargically sloughed off the last few trying hours from the most recent case, pushed open his front door, and walked into his apartment, instantly groaning when he turned on the light. Contrary to his teammates beliefs, his apartment wasn't shelved with books (what need was there for them, after all, when he could close his eyes, pull out any book from his mind, and open its pages to read every word?). Instead, the apartment was strewn all over with papers, notebooks, text books, and clothes. The last thing he wanted after their most recent case was to sit in a messy apartment. Looking at everything, the headache currently troubling him doubled in its intensity.

_This was not how I wanted to spend my Thursday night_. With that thought, he checked his watch and groaned again, resigned to his obligation. It was only six in the evening, and if he went to sleep now, he wouldn't wake up until tomorrow morning. His migraines tended to send him into a deep state of unconsciousness. So, he set about cleaning his apartment. He went to the kitchen first, turned on his coffeemaker, and while it brewed, he cleaned the counter, the sink, the table, and was rewarded ten minutes later with a nice mug of coffee. He put some ice in it and drank it down as quickly as he could, barely able to enjoy its taste. After settling the mug into the sink (and reassuring himself that he _would _clean it!), he went to his stereo and turned it on.

Two hours and a much cleaner apartment later, after gaining some much needed energy from his caffeine fix, he sat on his favored flourish-designed couch and rested his head back, closing his eyes. The music was weaving through the pleasure center of his brain, and images danced in the darkness, but it helped to bring down his headache to a dull thump instead of the usual staccato of equestrianesque gallops.

He truly loved classical music more than any other type of music.

When they'd returned from the case involving Sammy Sparks, he brought an electric keyboard, making it his goal to play it every night for at least a half hour if he wasn't away on a case, and play certainly did. He decided that after so many years of wanting to get involved with an instrument, he was only hindering himself intellectually by not tapping into his desire. People who played instruments were disciplined, and quite in tune (pardoning the pun) with the environment in ways that other people couldn't understand.

Granted, Spencer's world was never a dull experience. It didn't take him very long to realize when he was younger that he was a synesthet, more so with numbers, number groupings, and the like. It was something that greatly aided his memory. But he could also _see _sound, which he kept to himself out of some type of fear. Unfortunately, he never had the time—or rather the _pleasure_—to venture in the creative process of his synesthesia.

After the Spark's case, on thinking of JJ's departure, Spencer realized that he wanted to contribute something else to the world. After he completed his degree in philosophy, he wanted to study music in greater depth.

However, it was two months after he'd gotten the keyboard, and he was met with a wall of resistance. Despite music being mathematics, despite the fact that he could memorize the music with incredible tonal clarity, and despite the fact that he'd gotten the basics figured out, there was one thing that prevented Spencer Reid from advancing. And as obsessive as he was, he quickly became addicted to playing the piano, so this obstacle was rather frustrating.

This problem followed him like a wraith from his childhood:

When Spencer was a child, his father had enrolled him into a little league team. Physics could make the game much easier, ideally. There was an arc, there was an applied force. There was gravity. But he'd be damned if he could ever hit that ball. The one time that he swung too hard, the bat went flying from the tips of his little fingers and hit an innocent bystander. It was a disaster, and rather discouraging because he missed the ball anyway. His father tried again with soccer a year and a half later. Once again, simple physics could make the game so easy. But he was so uncoordinated and clumsy. Numerous times, he was very closely acquainted with Mother Earth, and it wasn't because someone tripped him. He tripped _himself_.

In college, one of his nicknames was Weedy Reid.

Years later, Aaron Hotchner taught him to aim, shoot, and follow through numerous times.

The inevitable truth of the matter was that no matter how much _sense_ Spencer Reid could make out of these things, no matter how much he could break them down and then use mathematics to figure out how to attain his goal, his motor skills were close to nil. Therefore, being dexterous with the piano was a problem for him. Mathematics be damned, he just couldn't play well.

Resolutely, he sat straight, turned off his stereo, and walked to his keyboard at the corner of the room, sitting down in front of it. The music he'd just heard was ever fresh in his mind, and he wanted to play it.

Alas, he couldn't.

"Curses," Reid mumbled under his breath before standing. He walked over to his desk, turned on his computer, and then opened the internet to start his search, mission-based.

_Piano Lessons near Adams Morgan, DC. _

_**-**_**Dissonant**_**-**_

"Hey Reid, lemme borrow one of your pens," Morgan said, coming up behind Reid sitting at his desk.

Reid sat up from his paperwork and threw Morgan a humorously dubious, thin-eyed glare. "Morgan, the term borrow indicates that something will be returned."

Morgan grinned and rolled his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"You have yet to return the 3 pens I've 'let you borrow' _this month _alone," the brunet continued with a thin smile.

Morgan threw up his hands in surrender. "Okay, kid, okay. Let me rephrase it: Can I _have _a pen?"

Reid gave his comrade a thoughtful look, tapping his pen against his lip mischievously. "I don't know, Morgan. 3 pens in one month, and 97 since I started working here? That's quite a bit. You sort of owe me lunch."

"Oh god, Reid," Prentiss interjected. "Please stop torturing him. Morgan, if you need a pen, I have one. But seriously? Start shopping at Staples or something."

"Why do I feel like I'm in high school all over again?" Morgan asked with a laugh. He took the pen from Prentiss that was extended to him, and then turned to Reid. "I'm gonna remember that kid," he said jokingly, hitting Reid atop his head with the pen.

Reid grinned and then turned back to his desk. "You're gonna be asking me again on Monday," he murmured lightly, before returning to his work.

"Unlikely, kid," Morgan said, sitting at his desk.

Reid plotted his operation for Monday morning, which would inevitably force his comrade to ultimately come to him for a pen. Oh, it would be sweet…

-I-

Another hour or so later, Reid furtively reached into his bag and pulled out a list from the front pocket. He stood up and headed to Garcia's office. Knocking on the door, he heard from the inside what sounded like a playful, "Enter if you dare."

Reid stepped into the office.

The blonde woman turned and gave Reid and large smile. "Hey there, muffin! Here to say hello to me?"

Reid smiled at her before producing his list. "I was, ah, wondering if you could do me a favour, actually." At Penelope's pout, he stuttered, "Uh, hi."

"Anything for you sweet cheeks. Name it," Garcia said, giving him her full attention. She wrinkled her nose at him when he shuffled to her desk like child wanting to sneak into homeroom late. "My, I just want to _eat _you up sometimes," she said, punctuating the words with a poke to his torso.

Unable to think of a proper reaction, Reid just awkwardly gave her the list. "Okay, so, could you just check to see if any of these guys have a record on them?" he asked.

"I don't remember briefing you guys on a case," Garcia murmured, tilting her head thoughtfully.

"Ah, no, it's not for a case," Reid retorted quickly.

"Oho, sneaky, sneaky!" Garcia said excitedly, waving her feathery pencil at him. "Aren't _you _being adventuresome!" She opened up the given program and typed in the first of the names.

"Not really," Reid said, looking over her shoulder.

"Pull up a chair!" Garcia said, smacking Reid in the arm. "I don't like when people hover!" Reid smiled and then sat next to her. "So, Charles Hibren, age 63, lives in Foggy Bottom. Record's clean," she started, and then went down the list.

After going through the nine people on the list, Garcia pointed her pencil at him accusingly, tickling his nose with the tip. "Who are these people, Reid?"

"Oh, ah…" Reid started. He didn't quite want to tell anyone that he'd started playing piano and he wanted lessons. For some reason, he just knew that he would never hear the end of it from Morgan. He could already imagine what nicknames the other agent would come up with:

Autotune. Eb n' Ive. Hammerhead. Baby Grande. The man was rather inventive about these types of things (when in actually, Reid's imagination was inventive). He shivered.

The agent fumbled out a lie: "They're just some, ah, guys that I, er, met at a conference…"

"Reid. I am one of five. _I _learned how to lie. Besides, when _you _lie—" she poked his forehead with her finger, "you have the words 'I stole the cookie from the cookie jar' written _all over your cute face_."

Reid rubbed his forehead and let out a chuckle, tilting his head. "From the cookie jar?" he asked.

"Yeah, you know…" Garcia started.

"Um…" His eyebrows knotted up.

"Oh my god, Reid. Sometimes I just want to whisk you away and give you a different childhood."

Reid smiled at her and grabbed the list from her desk. "Thanks," he said. "For this," he punctuated, flashing the list for a moment, before folding it and putting it in his pocket. "I'll see you later, Garcia."

"Bye, muffin," Garcia said before the door closed. She then pouted. "What oh what is the world coming to when little Reid tries to lie to _moi_?" She tutted and then turned back to the work she'd been doing before.

-I-

Reid looked down at the list in his hand while sipping on some coffee. Two of these piano teachers had previous records, though minor. He put a long slash through their names before looking over at his clock. He'd considered where these piano teachers lived, and he'd decided that of the seven remaining people, he would only contact three of them. The other four lived a bit too close to or too far from him, and he wanted a moderate distance between himself and the piano teacher.

He looked around the office for a quick moment, saw that neither Morgan nor Prentiss were around, and picked up his phone, dialing the first number that came to his head from the list.

"_Abe Everton."_

"Ah, hi. My name is Spencer and I was wondering about your piano lessons."

"_What would you like to know?" _

"I'm just curious as to whether you'd be willing to teach on off hours or not. Your schedule says your availability is only Monday through Thursdays from 10-4."

"_And that's the way it stays."_

"Oh. Er…okay. Even if I'm willing to—"

"_Monday through Thursday, 10-4!"_

"Ah, okay. H-have a good—" Reid pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. "Well then…" he murmured briskly, taking his pen and putting a slash through the name. The next person that he called had a similar, gruff attitude, and by the time he looked at the last name on the list, he gave a sigh of resignation. The odds were against him, but he picked up the phone either way to call the last person.

He didn't do well with rejection. This could very well ruin his day.

"_Wiesel residence. Leonard speaking."_

The man had a very thick, pronounced German accent. "Ah, hello. My name is, ah, Spencer and I was, er, a bit curious about your piano lessons."

"_Mmhmm? Regarding?" _

"Well your availability is Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but are you willing to, ah, to teach on another day…if it's at all possible? Or 'after hours' so to speak?" Reid asked.

"_Mm, I do, from time to time," _the man responded.

Reid sat up in his seat. _"Oh. _Are Saturdays possible?" he asked.

"_How old are you?" _Leonard asked.

"Ah, 29?" Spencer answered, unsure of why his age was relevant.

"_Ah, a working man, mm? Yes, I __**am **__willing to provide lessons on another day, but I do ask for a supplement."_

"Great! That's…" Reid lowered his voice when he saw Prentiss walk into the bullpen towards her desk. "That's great. Er, so, are Saturdays fine?" he asked again.

"_Mm, yes. What level are you?"_

"I'm a…Hmm. A beginner, I suppose."

The man murmured something in German. "_Does one o'clock sound good?"_

"Oh, that's actually perfect. Would it be too ambitious if I asked if you're available tomorrow?" Reid asked excitedly.

"_Not at all, my boy. You can certainly come by tomorrow."_

"Ah, thank you, Mr. Wiesel."

"_Good, good. See you tomorrow, then."_

Reid hung up the phone and leaned back into his chair, grinning.

"What's gotten you so excited, Reid," Prentiss asked with a smile, sitting at her desk.

Reid shook his head and cleared his throat. "Nothing," he said, trying to hide his excited smile.

Prentiss gave him an unconvinced grin and smiled. "Uh huh. You can't hide it from me for too long. You look like you just won first prize at the science-fair."

Reid shrugged his shoulder and turned back to his work, trying to hide his grin.

**-Dissonant-**

Shutting his car door, Reid walked toward the house of Leonard Wiesel excitedly. The white house was settled at the end of a large cul-de-sac, so it wasn't secluded, but it wasn't in the middle of everything, either. He knocked on the door, and it opened a few seconds later. "Oh…uh, hi," he said to the young girl—perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age—who'd opened the door.

"Hi, I'm Natasha," the girl said before letting Reid in. "Grandpa's in the bathroom. You can sit in the living room if you want."

Reid thanked the young girl and she led him into the living room before heading to the kitchen. Natasha, hm? That was a Russian name. He was sure Mr. Wiesel was German. Strange. He walked over to the piano and stared at it appreciatively. It was a Grande Steinway, black and smooth. Turning away from it, he stared at the wall, covered in numerous awards and pictures.

"Ah, you must be Mr. Spencer."

Reid turned to the entrance and saw Mr. Wiesel walking toward him with an extended hand. The man looked to be in his sixties, and was rather thin. For one reason or another, he'd imagined the man to be burly and angry-looking. He blamed it on the overdose of action films that Morgan forced him to watch of late. Damn those films and their cliché characterizations.

"Hi, yeah. Ah, you can call me Spencer," Reid said, shaking his hand.

"So, you told me that you're a beginner at the piano?"

"Mm, yes," Reid answered.

"Well, what made you want to take lessons? Especially at your age?" Mr. Wiesel gave him a strong, demanding stare. "You're a little old to be just learning."

"Ah, actually humans have an amazing brain capacity. Studies show that we can take in an infinite amount of knowledge, so one is never too old to learn anything," Reid retorted quickly. He then furled his eyebrows. "Although it's more difficult to learn a foreign language the older one is," he murmured mostly to himself.

"Hm. Duly noted," Mr. Wiesel said with a grin. He pointed toward the piano. "Please sit." After Reid did so obediently, he pulled up a chair beside the piano. "How long have you been playing?" he asked.

"Ah, four months now," Reid answered.

"Mm. Well. I'm a very…efficient teacher. I have many awards under my belt, both mine and my students. All of my students have ended up playing in major symphonies or traveling abroad," Mr. Wiesel said. He then said almost degradingly, "However, I've found that my adult students quit very quickly because my standards do not suit their style. I haven't time to dally with you, so if you haven't the discipline to take criticism and to be diligent, then I ask that you leave now."

Reid gave them man an odd stare. The older man was trying to intimidate him, make him angry, rile him up. He couldn't possibly imagine why.

"Also, with someone with as little experience as you claim to have, I'm not willing to waste _my own _time. What can you contribute with these lessons?" he asked.

Reid hadn't been prepared to be taken on such a challenge, so Mr. Wiesel, left him speechless for a moment, which was rather rare. But subconsciously, Reid knew that Mr. Wiesel wanted to be challenged.

"I admit that I'm no professional," Reid started after a moment of silence. "It's why I've sought you out—to teach me. But music is mathematics. My aim is to become more dexterous in handling it. So I didn't come here on a whim."

_Sometimes_, the way Reid said things came out the wrong way. In this instance, Reid could tell that what he said was _not _taken in the way he'd intended.

"Mathematics!" Mr. Wiesel said in exasperation, eyebrows curling inward.

_Sometimes_, Reid didn't realize that the way he explained things did not come out as an apology, but rather as an accusation. He had neither an off button nor a 'tone it down' one.

"Yes. In fact, rhythm, timing, musical scales are all involved with mathematics. From Bach to Beethoven, all of their works are incredibly complex mathematical ventures. There are so many principles that Bach, for example, applied to his music—tetraktys, mirror principle—"

"Stop. _Natasha_."

"Yes, Opa!" the girl called from the kitchen.

"Come here." In seconds, the girl was in the living room. "Please demonstrate to Mr. Reid that the piano isn't simply…_mathematics._"

The young girl tilted her head. "_Opa_," she drawled impatiently, huffily.

Mr. Wiesel wordlessly and emphatically pointed to the piano, and the girl groaned, sending a glare to Reid.

Reid stood up and the girl sat in front of the piano.

"E Natural."

The girl, obviously knowing what her grandfather wanted, proceeded to play the single note for Reid, but with varying octaves, and in such an efficient manner. She leaned near the piano and swayed in front of it. Reid was caught up in the beauty of the simplicity, hearing the same note over and over again, but with such vivid color.

"Stop." Mr. Wiesel interrupted. "Do you see, Mr. Spencer? Emotion. If one desires, he may say that music is nothing more than strings of notes at varying length. But Natasha played one note, and that variation of intervals—of octaves—breathed into it and gave it life. Please, my boy, do not reduce music to mere mathematics." The man let out a heavy, solemn sigh, shaking his head. "If that is all you see in it, then I have nothing to teach you, Mr. Spencer."

Reid tilted his head. "I think you may have misinterpreted my meaning, Mr. Wiesel. I have a PH.D. in Mathematics. I see it everywhere, in everything. The same goes for sound. To me, music isn't _reduced _by mathematics—it's enhanced by it, because I understand it with a clarity that others may not." He couldn't gauge the man's emotions after his statement.

Mr. Wiesel stared at him intently and then sat back in his seat. His eyes made a slow sweep of the man standing before him, from the untamed curls atop his head to the black converse covering his barely hidden, mismatched socks. He then let out a chuckle, smiling at Reid. He couldn't tell whether the man that sat before him was an artist or a wayward scholar "_Huh_. You're confounding."

Reid didn't expect the statement, and could merely stare at the older man.

"Opa, can I go now?" the girl interrupted suddenly from the piano.

"Go, go, my dear," he murmured, and the girl stood up quickly and headed back to the kitchen.

"I'm going to the park with Jasmine, grandpa. I'll see you later," she yelled from the kitchen door.

"You're intellectual, I can tell. However, you must make sure that you do not let your intellect turn into your god."

Reid smiled at the man and thinned his eyes at him in mirth, quite impressed with the older man. "Einstein."

"_Mein gott_!" the older man said in absolute delight, clapping his hands once. "Very sharp, my boy! Very sharp!" He patted Reid's shoulder. "I like that. So, Mr. Spencer," the man started as he pointed to the piano emphatically. Spencer stood up and sat at the bench again. "Tell me—what is your musical background, what drew you to the piano in particular, and why have you taken so long to start?"

**-Dissonant-**

"911, what is your emergency?"

"_Huuungh…_Someo—oh god, he's dead. Someone killed—mmm…!"

"I'm sorry, miss. Did you say that someone is dead?"

"Ye—yes. My—he's—"

"Who, ma'am?"

"My husband," she gasped, staring at the dead body of her husband. The sight was etched forever in her mind's eye. "My husband. My—oh my god, honey! Please sa—save him…!" The words drowned into a weakened sob.

"Please, miss, if you can, don't touch his body. We'll send a dispatch and an ambulance. Ma'am, are _you _injured?"

"Oh god, _please_." She wheezed in a deep breath and then a moan burbled from her throat. Unable to speak without hitching her breath every few syllables, she continued "Oh my god, _please_, _please_, tell me this isn't—no, Joshua, why would someone…!"

"Ma'am, _are **you** injured_?"

"_Guuungh_…his hands! _Where are his hands_?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **There we go. So…I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review telling me if I should continue or not D:! *winces*

Anywhom, Wiesel is pronounced VEEzl if any of you were curious… And how many musical puns did I throw in here?

Trivia: Two of the names mentioned in this chapter are of live musicians [I did it subconsciously and realized it just before posting :P] Figure them out :D?

And curses! Why can't I put an exclamation mark after my question mark? FanfictionDOTnet: 1. Emphasis: 0.


	2. II

**Warning: **Violence at the end of the chapter.

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><p><strong>Dissonant<strong>

**II**

Morgan leaned back from his seat, crackling his knuckles as he let out a sigh. He then stretched his back before groaning and then standing, walking from his office, grabbing his jacket on the way out. "You ready, Prentiss?" he asked.

"Yeah, just give me another minute or so to finish this file," the female agent said without lifting her head.

"What about you, Pretty Boy?" Morgan asked as walked down the steps and went up to Reid, who sat with his head resting back, staring at the ceiling. "You comin' with us tonight?"

Reid didn't respond. He _wasn't _working on a case file, as the one in front of him was closed. Instead, the brunet was noiselessly drumming his fingers over the desk surface distractedly, head bobbing ever-so-slightly from side to side.

From the beginning of his lessons, he'd pleased his instructor, Mr. Wiesel, with his ability to absorb the basics of music, but his research into music theory and its psychological and physiological affects turned his lessons from mere teacher-student interactions to rather lengthy, in depth discussions that sometimes ended up in debates.

At times, he felt that he'd gone too far in his openness. The third week he went, for example, the two of them had argued over the benefits and disadvantages of recorded symphonies as opposed to live ones. In the end, he felt that there was a moral and social advantage of the recordings, openly calling the man selfish if he felt that live orchestras were the only true art (though he couldn't refute the benefits of live music). He was sure that Mr. Wiesel was so angered with him that he would no longer provide lessons, but the man reassured him that disputing over classical music was essential for its longevity. As long as there was an argument, it meant that there was life still breathing in it, and if there was life in it, the new generations hadn't completely forsaken it.

Two weeks after the particular argument, Mr. Wiesel invited him to go to the Chrysler Hall to listen to the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. It was the first time he'd ever been to a symphony hall (despite what one might think), and it was undoubtedly one of the most intense and personal experiences.

It was now three months later, and he'd advanced beyond the expectations of Mr. Wiesel. Even _Natasha _had expressed to him that he was—in her words—'passable' (She'd merely been trying to rile him up jokingly) for the short time that he'd been playing.

"Knock-knock," Morgan said with a grin, knocking his knuckles on Reid's desk surface and flickering the desk light on and off. He knew that Reid particularly hated the latter action, but the brunet was sometimes so absorbed in his work that he couldn't think of any other way to get his attention.

"Hm?" Reid asked, looking up at Morgan. Behind the toned male, he saw Prentiss standing from her desk and putting her jacket on. "You guys are going out?" he asked before turning back to his file.

"Yeah. You comin' with?" Morgan asked.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," Prentiss announced quickly. "Garcia and I will meet you two downstairs."

"'kay," Morgan said, before turning back to Reid. "So?"

"Nope. I'm going home," Reid said, leaning back in his seat.

"Oh, c'mon, kid. I'm sure that whatever you're gonna do at home can wait a couple of hours. Take it easy tonight, yeah?" Morgan asked, waggling his head at Reid. "Get a couple of drinks, maybe show us all some of your _dance _moves…"

"_Dance _moves…" The words were murmured self-depreciatingly, and the brunet gave a quick, small shake of his head. "Those don't exist, Morgan. At all. I consider my motor skills to be the equivalent of a newborn foal and Pinocchio," he huffed. But then he pursed his lips, trying to veil a deviant smile. "Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a dancer," he said jokingly, inciting a bark of laughter from Morgan.

"Hey, I'm sure that whatever you grew up on in Vegas has rubbed off on you a little, Reid," the other agent said suggestively, his thick eyebrows jumping. "Doctors sometimes play with the nurses."

Reid could barely suppress his snort, blushing deeply and puffing air from his nose. He pressed the tips of his fingers to the back of his neck to relieve a small crick.

The action did not evade Derek's attention, and he leaned closer to the desk. "Hey, kid, how've your headaches been, by the way…?" he asked, his voice lowering.

Reid paused at the question and then tilted his head. Two weeks ago, they'd dealt with a particular case with a young paranoid schizophrenic only three or so years younger than Reid himself. Morgan had noticed Reid's distress over Ben Foster very quickly and, ever the comforting one, let his partner know that he had his full support. He felt it right, then, to inform Morgan of his intense headaches, the worry the side effects had on him, and the doctor visits. Letting his colleague know about it had been a momentary placebo in itself.

To be honest, his headaches were less troublesome lately, but only slightly. "Ah, they've been pretty sparse recently, actually," Reid answered. "Well, not sparse, but not as painful."

"You took something for them?" Morgan asked, leaning heavily against Reid's desk in concern.

Reid pursed his lips and shook his head. "No, actually. They've just been less frequent for the past couple of months," he admitted. Thinking about it, he realized that as soon as he'd started taking the piano lessons, he felt less stressed. Playing was an excellent way to release endorphins. It _was_ already months since he'd taken his lessons, and except for last week, hadn't missed one yet.

"Huh. You find something that takes the stress away, kid?" Morgan asked, grinning.

Reid chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much."

"What is it? You goin' to chess matches or somethin'?" Morgan joked.

"Ah, nothing of the sort, actually," Reid said with a sly smile.

"Ah, ah! I see that look on your face, pretty boy. You're hidin' something. You find yourself a girl?" He wriggled his fingers at Reid.

"Wh—what?" Reid stuttered. He shook his head incredulously. "No!"

"So spill. It can't be bad."

"Ah, it's nothing, Morgan," Reid said. "Go, go enjoy your _clubbing _with Prentiss and Garcia."

"You can't be swayed, can you?" Morgan asked one last time.

"_Negative_."

Derek let out a breathy chuckle. "Alright kid, have a good weekend. Unless we get a case."

"Let's hope not," Reid said before standing up and stretching, watching as Morgan walked away.

**-Dissonant-**

Spencer shut his car door and put his satchel over his shoulder, flipping a pocket open to pull out his phone as he walked toward the Wiesel house. He set it on 'vibrate' and returned it to its small pocket before he stopped at the front step and knocked on the door.

The front door usually remained open and he took to the habit of walking right into the house after giving it a polite knock to preface his entrance, but perhaps because of the heavy rainfall today, Mr. Wiesel preferred to kept it closed. His mind wandered for a short moment to the piece of music that Mr. Wiesel had given him two weeks ago, just so that he could test out his adroitness for pure sport. It was a famous piece by Chopin, difficult for its musicality more so than its technicality.

Mr. Wiesel had told him that eventually, he would transcend the mechanics of the piece and find himself playing it with such musical prosody that it would be like painting one's ears with sound. For this reason, he didn't play it for Reid before he gave it to him, and he made the agent promise that he wouldn't listen to any recording of it, because he wanted his student to break through it with his intuition and not with any preconceptions.

Spencer was certainly a man of his word.

His attention shifted quickly back to reality when a considerable glob of water splashed on his eyelid, and with the return of his present sense came the realization that no one had answered the door yet.

"Hm."

He rang the bell this time, remembering a saying his mother had told him a long time ago: _Son, friends knock, and strangers ring. But if they don't answer the door the first time, ring. If they fail the second time, make it a solid B-and-E._

His mother was completely lucid when she'd said the statement…

He pulled out his phone to check if perhaps Natasha had messaged him to inform him that her 'Opa' had cancelled the lesson today. He heard the door unlock and open, and was silently thankful that he didn't have to resort to his mother's the third option, not that he would have.

The time it took for him to put the phone in his bag and look up failed him. Otherwise he would have seen that it was neither Natasha nor Mr. Wiesel that wrenched him effortlessly into the house.

What ensued was a blind struggle, in which Reid knew that there was himself and his attacker, whose moves he couldn't anticipate for the mere fact that he'd been caught off guard from the very beginning. And so, a very clear thought passed quickly through his mind: his attacker had a great advantage over him, and that was very, _very _bad.

Spencer heard a distant, muffled wallop, and it took a quarter of another second to feel an ache emanate from his forehead and pulsate to the base of his skull, for the lights around him to flicker off for a moment and then flash back on. All too suddenly, his nose was bombarded with the distinctive, metallic scent of blood.

He rolled onto his back, a soft grunt freeing itself from his lips, and he attempted to sit up without vomiting on the carpet. It felt like every migraine that he hadn't experienced for the past week decided to make a cruel return visit all at once. He winced and pressed his hands to his eyes for a second, trying to gather his bearings, before a sound caught his attention.

Opening his eyes again, he looked up and subsequently pulled his head back. There was a bloodied bread knife right before him, and though he knew it had a holder, he was primarily focused on the blade itself. He looked up further and instantly wished he hadn't. He averted his eyes from the pair of blue ones he'd just unintentionally looked into.

His attacker had no qualms about showing him his face.

Putting his hands up to mitigate an averse reaction, Reid stuttered out, "Ah, are Mr. Wie—"

"Don't talk," the man said softly, voice leveled, controlled.

"Okay." He could barely discern his own voice.

There was a long, labored silence, and Reid decided that assessing the situation must come now.

His attacker used a knife. Victims are more likely to cooperate with an attacker if he is wielding a knife. The knife is definitely from the residence, not the attacker himself, meaning that he used it because it was an opportune weapon of choice. This would suggest that this person was disorganized.

However, the house hadn't been broken into, meaning that he'd been expected, which postulated that the family either knew him, or that this man knew that Mr. Wiesel's home was used for instructive purposes. The latter was more likely the case, which meant that the person was not acting on opportunity and was actually _very _organized and smart, and had probably come under the guise of wanting to learn to play.

The man subdued both Mr. Wiesel and Natasha, more than likely starting with Natasha, the weaker and younger of the two, and neither were present, meaning that they could have been separated from each other.

He was not wearing a mask, in which case Reid could safely, harrowingly assume that both Natasha and Mr. Wiesel were dead, and if they weren't at the moment, they would be very soon. He could smell blood, could hear neither of them, so he was positive that they were indeed already murdered. His current condition couldn't permit him to grieve for them.

If they were stabbed to death—unlikely with a bread-knife, but other knives were available—he was likely impotent.

_**I've **__seen his face_, he thought. _Any rational murderer would kill me as well. But did he know I would be coming here, or have I thrown him off of his course?_

"Stand up," the man said calmly.

He did so quietly and obediently, knowing that his swift and composed demeanor would keep the assailant as placated as possible. His assessment told him that cooperation at the moment was his _only_ option. He didn't know, however, what would possibly happen next, but it could be a varied number of events all with the same end result, ranging from multiple stabbings to a speedy execution. Murderers had the tendency to be quite creative when they were in their victim's houses.

_No, _he amended. _A disorganized unsub would do that. Once again, this man is organized. He'll only do what is necessary. He'll be clean and get things done qui__—_

He suddenly vaulted involuntarily toward the adjacent wall, his side slamming into a little table and sending small trinkets spilling to the carpeted floor. He hissed, his hand instantly cradling his face.

"I said get to the piano!"

He'd been too distracted to hear the unsub the first time, but hearing the order an apparent second time left him confused. The piano?

Wasting no time wondering what the man meant, he stumbled toward the piano and stood there, facing it.

"Sit down."

He did so and found that sitting in front of the instrument in the household of his murdered mentor was quite profane. He stiffened when he heard the man walk right behind him.

"That sheet music. Play it."

Spencer tilted his head. He hadn't anticipated this. Not at all.

"Play it now."

He looked at the sheet music in front of him, reading the sheets open to him. It was an etude, and it started easily enough, but he and Mr. Wiesel would have known that this was beyond his current capabilities. This was easily level eight or higher, and he was perhaps at a level three.

"I c—I can't," Reid said quietly. He was usually one to dismiss such negative mentality, but he knew when something was beyond his abilities. This was one of those times, and he severely wished it weren't.

"You _will_." The slowly measured words were punctuated with an impetus, the rounded tip of the blade pressing into his sweater, aligning with his spine.

"O—okay. Okay," Reid said nervously and quickly, lifting his hands and placing his fingers on the keys and pressing the given notes of the first few measures.

He was not adept at it in the slightest. If he had an hour with it, perchance he could make the _introduction _alone sound better, but the rest of the piece would take endless hours, many days and weeks to master. Also, having a knife pressed at his back was rather distracting. He relaxed slightly when, a moment later, the knife was retracted.

An unexpected gurgle flew past his lips and his hands flew up when he felt thin metal coil around his neck, effectively cutting off his circulation and suffocating him. He gagged and coughed out.

"Guh _hungh_!" His hand moved up further and he tried his damnedest to seek some type of purchase, to scratch, to gouge, to anything. Instead, he felt his body being pulled back, and the bench tipped backwards as his feet kicked out in an attempt to back peddle. The bench crashed to the floor, gravity drew him to the floor, but the deadly embrace of his attacker kept him more or less upright, increasing the pressure around his neck.

He didn't know where his hands were, and vision grew clouded.

He could hear every sound, every wheeze and grunt, becoming softer, more muffled, the crisp clarity of the world around him quieting like the ending of a surreal film.

He couldn't breathe.

Oh god, _he couldn't breathe_ and he could do nothing about it. He was going to die here. He was going to die, and the police would find his body. They would identify him, and a simple household murder would become a federal case, and his team—they would _see him dead_, and he couldn't do that to them because they'd just lost JJ—

"You play like _shit_." He heard the words somehow weaving themselves into his brain. The darkness he'd been trying to fight prevailed when he felt his body give a particular, violent tug, intuition separate from body, reducing him to a mere animal wriggling in its last throes in the mouth of its predator. But he knew. At least he knew, and he found some contentment in this fact when facing his death.

As he died, he didn't see numbers before his eyes. His brain wasn't firing off statistics. No. He heard the last remnants of air molecules coming into his ear, and his brain processed the vibrations of his slowing pulse into sweet sounds.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Oh, _Reid_…

Thank you for your reviews so far! I'm very enthused by your responses :D! I'm sorry if the time skip in the plot has jolted you somewhat, but it's necessary for certain purposes. Please leave a review…

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